


Iron and Steel

by VagrantWriter



Series: Iron and Blood [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Mild Gore, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-21
Updated: 2015-01-23
Packaged: 2018-03-08 12:03:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3208478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VagrantWriter/pseuds/VagrantWriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stories about the women who would have changed Theon Greyjoy's life if their paths had ever crossed.</p><p>Brienne of Tarth follows rumors that Arya Stark has resurfaced in the North after the burning of Winterfell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this installment is based almost exclusively on Theon's preview chapter for Winds of Winter: http://archive.today/eoIl
> 
> This is an AU where Brienne never met Lady Stoneheart and instead headed North in search of Arya.

“You were pledged to my brother.” Stannis did not look up from his paperwork. “Then to the Starks, I believe.”

“Lady Catelyn Stark,” Brienne corrected, then added, “Your Grace.”

The tower was cold, perhaps colder than if Stannis held counsel in the camp with the rest of his men. The wind whistled through cracks in the stone. High above, in the rafters, the ravens roosted together in clumps, huddled against the draft.

Stannis was a man of stone himself. He gave no indication that he could even feel the chill as he went about his work. “It’s the same thing, isn’t it?” He set aside the sheet he’d been working on and reached for the next, eyes still trained on the desk in front of him. “And now you show up at my door with Lannister armor and a Lannister sword.”

“Sword!” One of the ravens cawed. They unnerved Brienne, the way they watched from above and occasionally parroted back words. Their smell was awful.

“I do not serve the Lannisters, Your Grace.” She straightened her posture further, though he did not see it. “I have come to fulfill my oath to Lady Stark.”

“And what oath is that?”

“To find her daughters and take them somewhere they might be safe. After searching the Seven Kingdoms, I’ve finally found Arya Stark. I request you give her into my custody.”

“Sword!” the bird cried again, drawing her attention back. She hadn’t given it much thought upon entering, but now that she looked twice, she realized it was quite strange. There appeared to be an old scarecrow hanging on the wall. For the ravens, perhaps? How odd.

“I cannot do that.” Stannis had moved on to the next bit of paperwork. He had a quick and efficient hand, which fit well with his stony façade. “Arya Stark is the last remaining heir to Winterfell and the key to the North’s backing of my campaign.”

A raven swooped down and alit on the scarecrow’s head. And then it moved. Just a slight bob of the scarecrow’s head, it might have been from the draft, but the bird took flight again with an indignant squawk.

“What do you intend to do with her?” Brienne asked sharply. “You can’t mean to keep a _child_ on the battlefront.”

Stannis did look up at that. She saw a face of stone, like the man himself. A face that had perhaps never smiled at all.

“No, she will be sent to the Wall to be with her bastard half-brother until Winterfell can be retaken.”

“Then I request to be allowed to stay until such time as she had been delivered.”

He continued to stare at her.

The ravens fluttered.

“In return…” Her fists clenched and unclenched at her sides. This was the man who had killed Renly, his own brother. By some dark witchcraft in the dead of night when he’d been unarmed and unaware. A coward’s method. She’d sworn an oath to avenge Renly’s death, and yet now, to fulfill her oath to Lady Stark, she must set that aside. “I offer my services.”

Her armored rattled as she took a knee.

A moment of uncertain silence.

“Sword!”

“Get up,” Stannis sighed. “I have no need for the services of a woman knight whose loyalties change with the tide.”

Brienne grit her teeth against the insult. It stung her to the core. She didn’t think she’d be able to stand after that blow.

“I will allow you to escort the Stark girl to the Wall.”

She raised her eyes to his. His face was still impassive.

“You may flit like a moth to any flame that calls, but I believe you are on a mission of honor. I can respect that. You will leave with a small contingency of my men to escort the girl to the Wall. Accommodations will be made for you, such as they are.”

“Thank you, Your Grace.” She bowed her head again.

“Is there anything else you wish to ask?”

_How could you do it? How could you kill your own brother?_

High above, one of the ravens cawed. Its wings beat against the air, shedding dark feathers to the floor below, before it finally landed on the windowsill high above the tower room. It turned about in a circle, bobbing its head towards the scarecrow. “Theon!” it called in a near-human voice.

And the scarecrow lifted its head. Eyes the color of a calm sea looked out at her from underneath hair the color of the snow gathered on the window ledge. That was no scarecrow, but a man, thin as a twig and chained by the wrists.

Brienne balked at the realization.

“Your Grace…may I ask what that man’s crime is?”

Stannis’s pen stopped, and he looked up to regard the prisoner. “Your pity is wasted on that wretch.”

She saw missing fingers and toes, dried blood among the dirt staining the old man’s tattered clothes. Images came back to her of Vargo Hoat, the way he took special glee in dismembering his victims, digit by digit, the downright joyful gleam in his eyes as he’d chopped off Jaime’s hand. This man had been tortured.

“Did you do that to him, Your Grace?”

“He had a turn with the Boltons. I assure you, he came to me in that condition, though I will tell you again to stay your pity. That is Theon Greyjoy…or what is left of him.”

Brienne started at that name. She’d heard it before. Theon Greyjoy? The turncloak? The very one who had burned Winterfell to the ground and murdered Lady Stark’s two young boys?

“Your Grace,” she said, “he should be executed.”

“Sword!” the bird cried.

“I request the honor.”

Stannis breathed out through his nose. “He’s not for you,” he snapped. “He’s for the Red Woman’s fire, a tribute of king’s blood to the Lord of Light.” His face scrunched in distaste, as if the thought of Theon Greyjoy as king’s blood were abhorrent.

Brienne had heard many stories of Stannis and his Red Woman. And she remembered the shadow that had moved on its own, the puppet of some dark sorcery. She’d been powerless to do anything to save the man she’d loved from afar for so long, and he’d died in her arms as the shadow had slipped from the tent and disappeared. She’d seen much since then, but nothing like that.

No justice would be done with this Lord of Light.

“Your Grace, I must protest.”

“Oh?” he answered flatly.

“His crimes are against the Starks. As the heir of Winterfell, it is Lady Arya’s decision what it to be done with him.”

Stannis set his pen aside and clasped his hands before him on the desk. “Unfortunately, Lady Arya is refusing to speak at the moment. She was suffering from the cold when she arrived, and though the maester is certain she is out of danger, all attempts to coax any sort of account from her have been useless.”

Brienne thought. “Then, since you won’t accept me as an emissary of the Starks, you should at least consult this half-brother at the Wall. Surely he has some say in the punishment of the man who killed his two brothers.”

Stannis’ countenance grew colder still. “You’re suggesting I send the turncloak to the Wall? Give him an opportunity to take the Black?”

“He will not escape his due punishment.” Brienne gestured to the empty place on her belt where her sword should be—Oathkeeper had been taken before her meeting with the King, as a precaution. “I will see to it personally, if need be.”

Stannis watched her, searching. “His blood would make for a powerful tribute.”

“And the North would make a powerful ally in your claim for the throne.”

“ _Rightful_ claim,” he corrected.

She nodded to placate him. “The North worships the Old Gods, not your Red one. And the North remembers, as they are fond of saying. They believe in justice. Give them justice, Your Grace, and they will follow you.”

He leveled that same gaze on her again. She couldn’t fathom what he was searching for when he looked at her like that.

“Very well.” He raised his arm, and one of his attendants came running. “Cut him down.”

“Yes, Your Grace.” The attendant hurried to unhook the chain from where it was secured in a loop low on the wall. The chain slipped through the loop then through the manacle hook high above. The prisoner came crashing down the full six feet and landed with the sound of snapping bone. Brienne winced, but Theon Greyjoy made no sound.

“Brienne of Tarth,” Stannis addressed her, “I hereby proclaim that Theon Greyjoy is now _your_ responsibly.”

For the second time, Brienne started. “What?” She hadn’t requested _that_ , had she? “Your Grace…what am I to do with him?”

“See that justice is done.”

“Sword!” the raven cried.


	2. Chapter 2

She was saddled with a condemned man she couldn’t kill. She had nowhere to put him except the tent she already shared with Podrick, and she wasn’t keeping her new charge there. Not smelling as he did, at any rate.

Getting a bath for the miserable creature was a miserable experience. There wasn’t firewood to spare for something as frivolous as a bath, so she ended up taking him to what passed for the kitchens in this stronghold and had the maids there scrub him down as best they could with what water they had. He refused to remove his clothes, so they did as best they could. He shivered and clutched at himself and kept muttering nonsense. “Remember your name. You’ve got to remember your name.”

It took a long time, but when it was done he was passable. She still did not want to touch him, but at least his smell wouldn’t stand out among the horses in the camp. He was docile and followed at her side as she led him to her tent—she’d thrown an old blanket over him to act as a cloak on the off chance someone recognized him and killed him before they even got to the Wall.

Pod looked up from whatever task he’d been working on as they entered. His brows scrunched in confusion as their new guest, then his nose at the smell.

“Pod, set up a place on the ground for our guest to sleep.”

“Yes, Ser.”

She was too tired to even correct him and instead threw herself on her cot. Her armor was heavy and confining, and she started undoing it herself.

“Is it true?”

She looked up to see Theon watching her from the tent flap, the blanket clasped tightly about him. It was the first indication he’d given that he wasn’t completely out of his mind.

“Did Lady Stark send you?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He contemplated that. “It’s fitting. She always hated me. Not as much as Jon, but he never liked me much either. So I guess it’s also fitting that he’ll take my head.”

So, he was aware enough to know what was going on. “Don’t try to talk your way out of it,” she said. “I take my oaths seriously, and I intend to do justice by Catelyn Stark.”

He nodded. If resignation had a name, it would be Theon Greyjoy.

Brienne continued to dismantle her armor. Pod busied himself with the makeshift bed. Theon stood in the tent’s entryway in silence. Outside, the wind picked up, rustling the canvas of the tent. It would be a cold night.

“They told me she died at the Twins.”

Brienne lifted her head at his voice.

“Catelyn,” Theon clarified. “The Boltons told me she died with Robb.”

“Does that please you?”

He knitted his brow. “Why would that please me?”

She shrugged out of her spaulders and then her gorget. “Your former captors, betrayed by someone they trusted. It must give you some satisfaction.”

He clutched his meager blanket more tightly about himself. “I wish I’d died with Robb.”

There was remorse in his words, perhaps even genuine. Too bad remorse didn’t bring anyone back from the dead. “A little too late for that,” she noted as she moved on to her breastplate.

“I never got to tell him I didn’t kill his brothers.”

Brienne stopped again. She’d been there when Lady Stark had received news of Bran and Rickon’s deaths. She could still hear the woman’s heartbroken wailing in her mind, the sort of pain that was beyond consolation. How cruel was Theon Greyjoy, whether he was telling the truth of not, to be saying this now?

“You deny murdering two you boys?”

He shook his head. “I’m a murderer. A child murderer. But they were the miller’s boys. Bran and Rickon—I lost—I couldn’t face my men. _He_ suggested it. _He_ was the one who…who actually did it. But I—I agreed. I let—but I wouldn’t have let him hurt Bran and Rickon. Please, you must believe me.”

“I believe you’d tell yourself anything to justify your actions.”

He looked stricken at that. She’d hit close.

She continued to undo her vambraces while Pod gathered spare material to make a pallet. Blankets were scarce. Theon Greyjoy would be spending a night with hardly anything separating him from the cold ground beneath.

“You’re right, I suppose. All this time I’ve been telling myself that they got away. But look at it.” He craned his neck towards the billowing tent canvas overhead. “Winter has come. Two small boys, a halfwit, and a wildling woman…they’d never survive on their own. I might have killed them. I just wish I’d had a chance to tell Robb that I never meant…” He seemed to lose his train of thought and faded into silence.

“Are you telling the truth?” Brienne asked. “When you last saw Bran and Rickon Stark, they were alive?”

“Yes, but—”

“Lady Arya should be informed. No matter how small the chance, her brothers might yet be alive. A search party should be sent out.” She stood, leaving the rest of her armor for now. “Pod, keep the tent. I will be back shortly.”

“Ser, where are you—?”

“I will meet with Lady Arya.”

 

***

 

Brienne was furious, and the girl’s sobbing wasn’t helping. This girl, this _not_ -Arya, was raising a great fuss as they made their way back to the tent, Brienne with a vice-like grip on the girl’s bone-thin arm. Not Arya was so light, her feet barely touched the ground as she was pulled along. They had to hurry, before the handmaidens told Stannis she’d run off with his highborn bargaining piece.

Brienne threw back the tent flap and shoved the girl inside. “Who is this?” she demanded to a surprised Pod and Theon.

Upon seeing Theon, not-Arya launched herself at him and wrapped her arms around his neck. Theon pulled her close, looking almost protective as he scowled at Brienne over the girl’s shoulders. Now Brienne really had to know who she was.

“Arya Stark has grey eyes.” Catelyn had told her many times how her youngest daughter tended towards the Northern looks—dark hair, simple features. This girl fit the description—the end of her nose had been lost to the cold and she was a bit older, but that was all to be expected—except for one thing. “Why does she have brown eyes?”

Not-Arya sobbed into Theon’s shoulder.

“Who have you told?” he asked.

“I thought I’d get the answer from you first.”

Pod abandoned his work and watched them from the opposite corner. He bore a look of confusion on his face, and Brienne wondered what he thought of the girl with the tear-stained face. After all, she couldn’t be far removed from his own age.

Theon let out a little sigh. “I was the one who told her to do it. As long as she’s Arya Stark, she’ll be protected here.”

“Who is she?”

“My name is Jeyne Poole,” the girl said, finally coming up for air. “Jeyne Poole. Jeyne Poole. Not Arya Stark. Not Arya Bolton. Jeyne Poole.” She collapsed back into sobbing and hid her face in Theon’s shoulder.

“Why were you pretending—?”

“The Boltons made her!” Theon hissed. “Haven’t you figured that out? The Arya you came looking for is a fake.”

Brienne felt her heart constrict. No. No, she was so close to fulfilling her oath. To have everything ripped out from under her… Arya Stark had slipped through her fingers. Sansa Stark had slipped through her fingers. She’d broken another vow.

She leaned heavily against the tent pole as she attempted to sort out her thoughts.

“You won’t tell Stannis, will you?” Theon asked. No, begged. “I don’t know what he’ll do with her.”

She watched the two of them huddled together in the corner of the tent, a couple of skeletal figures grappling for comfort from each other.

She gave a defeated sight. “Fine, but Arya’s brother will know she is not his sister when we arrive at the Wall.”

“Jon would never harm her. His honor wouldn’t allow it.”

They watched her with large, sunken eyes. They made a pair, Theon with his missing fingers, Jeyne with her missing nose. The poor girl had gone through so much, if even half the stories Brienne had heard about the Boltons were true. She suddenly felt overwhelming shame for her earlier treatment of the girl.

“We’ll depart for the Wall tomorrow,” she said and saw the relief in every sharp angle of their bodies. “All of us.”

 

***

 

They set out early after a night of fitful sleep. The wind continued to howl but died down by daybreak. They left with several of Stannis’s men in tow. It still stung that Stannis questioned her honor such that he had to send his own men to escort them.

Jeyne cringed away from them and even from Brienne. She rode by Theon’s side, so close that she could reach out and brush his shoulder with her fingertips, as if to reassure herself that he was really there. She didn’t speak at all, and one of the men said this was the longest she’d ever gone without crying.

Other than Theon, the girl tolerated Pod, perhaps because he was of a similar age. Pod, for his part, seemed smitten, rushing to take care of her when they rested, making sure she was warm, always asking, “Are you comfortable, my lady?” after draping his cloak over her shoulders. She would answer with a nod and once actually smiled when he tripped over his own feet to fetch her something.

“I haven’t seen her smile in so long,” Theon confided in the dark of the night.

They’d pitched camp on their first night, and while there was plenty of firewood in the forests, they dare not build a fire. There were still Bolton men out there. And so they made do with their furs and dried rations. The night was dark and cold, though, and Brienne found herself thinking more and more of Tarth.

“You rescued her, didn’t you?” Brienne lay propped against a tree in her bedroll. The others were asleep, except for the man on watch at the border of the camp. “I heard the two of you were found wandering in the snow. What compelled you to risk your life like that? Were you trying to redeem yourself?”

He was silent. Just when she was beginning to wonder if he’d gone to sleep, he answered, “Maybe. But mostly I think I was trying to save myself.” He rustled in his furs. “You ask why I would risk my life. Because there was nothing to risk.” He settled back into his bedroll. “At least now I get to die as Theon Greyjoy.”

She thought about that for a long time. It wasn’t that she had come to sympathize with him, but there was something about the utter defeat in the way he spoke, the way he slumped forward on his horse as they rode that reminded her of Jaime after he’d lost his hand. She’d found herself thinking about Jaime more often than she liked to admit the farther North she’d gone. Sometimes, as her mind drifted, he would be with her on the sandy beaches of Tarth, away from everything. These daydreams left lingering warmth under her skin.

There had been a time when she could not imagine thinking fondly of the Kingslayer—a man without honor, she’d called him.

“I hope you do not think,” she began, and the slight rustle to her right told her Theon was still awake, “that what the Boltons did to you was justice.”

“I was justice…of a sort.”

“No. If you believe you deserve that, then you must believe Jeyne deserved hers as well.”

He stiffened. “You know I don’t.”

“When we get to the Wall, either Jon Snow or I will take your head. That’s justice. What the Boltons did to you, they did for their own purposes.”

“Their amusement,” Theon amended.

“It was cruelty. I want you to know, I serve justice, not cruelty.”

He laughed at that. It was eerie and mirthless.

“I know it’s not my place to make requests of you,” he said, “but I was hoping…if it looks like we’re not going to make it to the Wall…take my head then, would you?”

“You’re afraid of the Boltons getting you?”

“I’ve become quite the coward.”

Brienne breathed out through her nose, thinking. Then she got up, pushing aside her furs, and made for her pack. It was difficult rummaging in the dark, but eventually she found what she was looking for. With the cold metal in her hand, she came around to Theon’s bedroll, crouched down, and fumbled the handle into his mangled hands.

“There. If it comes to it, use it.”

She couldn’t see, but she could imagine his confused expression. “On myself?”

“On yourself. To protect Jeyne. Whatever you have courage for.”

Now she could imagine him thinking. “I could kill you in your sleep.”

“But you won’t.”

“You can’t know that.”

She shrugged, though she doubted he could see it. “I suppose not. But I do know that I was wrong about you in one way. If you still have a shred of honor left, like I think you do, you’ll use that dagger for the right purpose.”

She settled back into her bedroll and tried to regain the warmth she’d lost. The woods were silent all around her, and overhead the stars were sharp and clear.

Several minutes passed. She found herself drifting off to sleep. Just on the brink of consciousness, she heard a small, “Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, in case it's not obvious, I don't know a thing about armor. Or weapons, really. So if something in glaringly wrong, I apologize and shift all blame to Wikipedia.


	3. Chapter 3

The journey to the Wall was slow-going. The snow was deep, the road buried. Theon didn’t care much for himself—death might be a welcome relief at this point—but Jeyne was in no condition to travel. She was proof, living proof, that he had done at least one thing right with the life he’d been given, and he intended to keep her that way.

They broke often to dig snow from the horses’ hooves. Stannis’s men did not like to let either of their escorts out of sight, but Brienne of Tarth had stepped in to give them privacy while they saw to their more personal needs, at least.

Theon could not figure the big woman out. She was the type of person he would have mocked mercilessly in his previous life—large and ugly and playing at being a man. Never mind that _he_ was now _small_ and ugly and playing at being a man, there was something else he’d come to admire about her. She reminded him of Ned, or perhaps the woman the real Arya Stark would have grown to become. She seemed to live to serve others, but she did not allow them to govern who she was. Stannis’s men laughed openly and often at her expense, and yet their insults might have been water for how they rolled off of her.

Sometimes on the journey, Theon found himself feeling for the hilt of the dagger she’d given him. It was comforting to be given a choice, given some small control over his own fate.

“I’m afraid of what’s going to happen when we get to the Wall.” It was the third—fourth?—day of travel. There was no telling how far they’d come or how far they had yet to go. Jeyne only spoke when the two of them were alone, as they were now, in this clearing. Jeyne was crouched near a brook, its current fighting off the freezing cold still. Theon dipped her handkerchief into the icy water, wrung it out, and wiped the dirt from her nose. The maester had said to keep the wound clean to ward off infection.

“You don’t need to be afraid,” he said. “Jon won’t let anyone hurt you.”

She winced as the cold cloth touched her face. Theon hated to think he was causing her pain, but he remembered nights of sweating and writhing on the floor as infection had taken hold of his body after another dismemberment—fingers, toes, teeth…that other thing—so he knew it needed to be done. Looking back, he couldn’t account for _why_ he was still alive.

“I’m afraid of what he’ll do to you.” She sniffled through her ruined nose. “I don’t want to see you killed.”

Theon finished cleaning, and she drew her shawl up to her eyes to guard against the cold.

“I deserve to die.”

“No you don’t! You didn’t kill Bran or Rickon, and you didn’t burn Winterfell.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m still a traitor.”

She flung herself into his chest, nearly knocking him over. “I don’t care! I’m Arya Stark, remember, and I won’t let them kill you.”

“No.” He patted her back, unsure whether a hand with missing fingers would offer any comfort. Comforting in general was not something that came naturally to him. “When we get to the Wall, you won’t be Arya anymore. You should never be Arya again, or I will be forced to be Reek again. So promise me that you’ll only ever be Jeyne.”

She sobbed. “Let’s run away.”

He laid his chin against the top of her head. “You know we can’t do that.”

“I know. But it would be nice. We could go south.”

“We’d die on the way there.”

“So far south no one would ever find us.”

“They’d find us before we were gone an hour.”

“Shh. Let me pretend. It’s the only thing I was ever good at.”

They sat in silence by the stream for some time.

“We need to get back,” Theon said at last. “They’ll be wanting to get on the road again.”

Jeyne nodded, and as she pulled away, he could see the silent waif overtaking her once again. She might not talk again until this time tomorrow. He wiped the tears from her cheek with the pad of his thumb and helped her to stand.

The sound of footsteps crunching through the snow reached his ears. The guards much have become impatient waiting and come to collect them. Theon raised his head to say that Lady Arya would not be hurried, but there was nobody there. Spine tingling, he turned to look behind.

On the other side of the brook, three men had appeared from out of the trees. Theon felt the entire world tilt upon recognizing them: Damon, Sour Alyn, and Skinner. The Bastard’s Boys.

They seemed as startled to see him as he was to see them.

“Now, isn’t this a small world?” Damon laughed.

Theon didn’t respond. He grabbed Jeyne’s hand and ran.

“Oi!” someone called after them. “Get back here!”

The brook served no protection, as the sounds of splashing from behind suggested the Boys saw it as no obstacle. Theon gripped tighter and ran harder. The snow came up to his knees, nearly up to Jeyne’s waist. It was like wading, but the clearing was flat and open and the camp was only a few hundred feet away now.

“Where do you think _you’re_ going?”

The voice was right behind them, the footsteps catching up. With a bolt of dead, Theon realized they would never make it to the camp. He looked to Jeyne running by his side then reached for Brienne’s dagger. He wouldn’t let them touch her.

_Do it. First her and then yourself. It’s the only way._

His fingers shook. The dagger refused to hold steady.

_The heart, the throat, the brain. Pick a place and plunge it in, deep. She’ll never see it coming. It will be a kindness._

“No,” he muttered. Brienne’s advice came back to him: Protect Jeyne. He could attack the Bolton men, buy her enough time to make it back to camp. He pushed her forward, urging her to run, and stopped dead in his tracks.

Unfortunately, so did she.

“Theon!”

“Keep going!”

“I can’t!”

“You can. You have to. Don’t argue, just—” They were on him, Skinner grabbed one arm, Sour Alyn the other, twisting until the dagger fell from his hand. He swore and kicked out, though he was clearly no match for them. “Jeyne! Run!”

Instead he heard her scream. He looked up to see Damon grabbing her by the hair and dragging her back. She went limp in his hold, like a dead thing.

“Well, well, Lady Bolton. Imagine meeting you all the way out here. Ramsay has been searching for you everywhere.”

She didn’t reply, just hung her head as he whispered into her ear.

“Don’t touch her.” It sounded like a plea coming from Theon’s lips, pathetic begging. Just having Skinner and Alyn’s hands on him brought Reek creeping to the surface. He fought it off as best he could, but fear was not an easy thing to forget.

“And Reek.” Damon turned to him with a smile. “You’ve been missed as well. Things have been horribly boring without you around.”

Theon saw where his dagger had landed a few feet away, buried. He had no hope of reaching it, but he fought for it anyway. Skinner wrenched his arm in the wrong direction and something cracked. Theon howled in pain.

“You have no idea,” Alyn laughed, “what Ramsay has in store for you.”

But he did. He did know.

Theon moaned.

“Let go of them.”

All eyes, except maybe Jeyne’s, turned up to see the armored figure coming towards them, a sword of Valyrian steel and a golden hilt raised and glinting in the sun off the snowdrifts.

“Those are my charges,” Brienne said, brow furrowed. “You will take your hands off them now.”

Skinner squinted. “Is that a woman?”

“I won’t repeat myself,” Brienne growled.

“Ugliest woman I’ve ever seen. Biggest, too.”

Brienne took a step forward. Before she could get very far, a sound like the baying of a great hound rang through the clearing. She stopped and spun, sword held out defensively. Theon thought his heart might stop to see a large hunting dog, jowls wet with blood, come ambling from their campsite, followed by Ben Bones and none other than Ramsay himself. Ramsay wore a smile and a fresh layer of blood, his own sword caked in gore. “I’m disappointed in the men Stannis sent to protect my wife,” he said. “They managed to get a few of my girls, but imagine if we’d been a _real_ threat.”

Ben Bones did not look pleased to have lost the dogs. He clicked his tongue and the hound—it was Kyra, of course it was Kyra—came to heel at his feet.

“I want to thank you, my lady,” Ramsay continued with a mock bow, “for returning my wife and pet to me.”

“Let me guess.” Brienne scrunched her nose in distaste. “Ramsay Snow.”

His smile fell away. Theon bit back the trained impulse to throw himself as his master’s feet and beg forgiveness. That look _promised_ things. Things he’d rather not think about.

“I wouldn’t expect a bitch wearing armor to know her place.” He nodded to the sword in her hands. “You any good with that?”

“Try me and find out.”

The Boys laughed.

“Okay, I’ll try you.” Ramsay stepped forward casually, the relaxed movement of his muscles telling that he was underestimating his opponent. Ramsay was a butcher; he was no soldier, no warrior. Theon’s throat constricted hopefully. Though what hope was there? Even if Brienne managed to kill him, they’d still be outnumbered. Ramsay seemed to have a similar thought, because he held out a hand to stay his Boys. “You all just stay where you are. You can all have a go at her after I’ve finished.”

He had barely finished his sentence before she was on him, faster than she looked, slashing with her sword. Ramsay just scarcely rolled to the side and came up laughing. Brienne spun on her heel and brought her sword down on him, but this time he was able to bring his own sword up to block the blow. The inferior metal rang against Valyerian steel.

“You _are_ mannishly strong,” Ramsay cried in mirth. “Are you _sure_ you’re a woman?”

She didn’t respond with anything other than a sharp grunt as she kicked out, catching him in the stomach.

He stumbled backwards, clutching himself. Theon felt Skinner tense at his side.

“Don’t!” Ramsay ordered. “Nobody interfere. I’m going to kill the big bitch and fuck her with my sword, whatever it is she’s got under there.”

He recovered and they were on each other again, sharing blows.

Theon was so busy watching them that he didn’t hear the approaching footsteps until someone was screaming, practically in his ear, “Let her go!” He turned to see Brienne’s squire, Podrick Payne, wielding a battle axe easily half his size and swinging it at Damon, who was still holding Jeyne. Theon couldn’t tell if he’d struck true or not, but Alyn immediately let go of his arm to go help Damon.

He grappled with the boy, grabbing the axe out of his hand and punching him square in the face. And that was when something truly surprising happened.

Jeyne snapped out of her comatose state and threw herself at Alyn. She became a wild cat, clawing and hissing, using her nails to scratch along his face and into his eyes. Alyn shrieked, and as he tried to pry her off, Pod got up and joined in, the two of them working to take him down.

Skinner seemed unsure if he should help or not, and for a split second his grip went loose. Theon saw his chance and broke free, ignoring the searing pain in his shoulder. He landed in the snow and lunged for the dagger where it had fallen. Just as he felt the cold metal on his fingers, Skinner was on him. Theon yanked the dagger out, rolled over, and plunged as hard as his strength would allow right into Skinner’s belly.

The world stopped. There was no sound for several seconds.

And then Skinner groaned and slumped forward. Theon wriggled out from under him, struggled to his knees, and brought the dagger down into Skinner’s back, wrenching a horrific scream from him. He did it again. And again. He stabbed for every time Skinner had beaten him, flayed him, raped him, and then for all the times the other Boys had as well. The dagger cut through skin like paper—between ribs, into the soft flesh of the belly, into the neck and up into the brain. He kept lifting the dagger and bringing it back down until his hands had turned red.

He didn’t know when Skinner stopped making noises, but he did know he stopped only when someone hugged him from behind. “He’s dead,” he heard Jeyne’s voice sob into his ear. Her hands came around to pry the dagger from his clenched fists, and he allowed it. She was right. He was dead.

Everything was red. His hands were red. The snow was red. When he turned to look at Jeyne, she was red, splatters of blood on her face and all down her front. He grabbed her and pulled her tight.

“I’m fine,” she said, her voice shaky. “It’s not my blood. It’s…it’s his, theirs.”

He looked over her shoulder to the scene beyond. Alyn and Damon’s bodies lay bloodied in the snow, though he couldn’t tell which was which. Podrick had recovered his axe and was now using it as a cane, leaning against it and heaving. His face was spectacularly swollen, but he looked otherwise unharmed.

“They’re dead,” Jeyne said. “All of them. Even…”

Brienne grunted as she pulled her sword free of Ramsay’s chest in a great spray of blood. She raised it again, double-handed, and brought it down on his neck. If he’d been alive before, he wasn’t now as his head rolled free of his body. Theon hoped he had been alive.

It didn’t feel like it was over. There was no way it could have been that quick.

Ben Bones had apparently run, leaving behind Kyra. Theon couldn’t tell why the hound hadn’t fled after her master. Instead, she came bounding across the blood-soaked snow and began licking at Theon’s face. Then she curled up between him and Jeyne and rested her head on his lap.


	4. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jon's alive in this because of course he is. You can't fool us, Martin. We know Melisandre's going to bring him back. You can take that to the Iron Bank.

Theon looked up as Brienne entered his room. “Have they made a decision?”

She nodded.

That had been fast. Less than twenty-four hours.

They’d made the Wall three days after they’d been set upon by Ramsay and his men, despite Jeyne’s pleas to the contrary. She even suggested faking Theon’s death—who would know with all the blood they’d left behind?—but Brienne had been adamant about fulfilling her end of Stannis’s bargain and Theon had been inclined to agree with her. Jon—Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch now, not bad for a bastard—greeted them with surprise and asked about the four men Stannis had mentioned in the letter. Brienne told him how she’d buried them as best she could in the frozen ground and left markers and, if possible, could Jon send a raven requesting Stannis to tell the men’s families.

Jon recognized Jeyne right away. At first he’d been angry, and then he’d been saddened to be denied a reunion with his sister. He settled for pity when Brienne explained the circumstances, and Jon had pledged that he would protect Jeyne for the time-being and that there were women and children at the Wall he could house her with.

Theon had been another matter. At first Jon had not recognized him, but upon Brienne’s confirmation that this was the turncloak who had betrayed his family and driven his two youngest brothers out into the Northern wilderness, a shocked expression had settled onto that stern face. Apparently it hadn’t taken much thought at all to decide his fate, only a brief consult with Brienne.

“When am I to lose my head?”

Brienne leaned against the door frame. “Not today. Possibly not tomorrow, if you take the deal I proposed.”

Theon didn’t dare let himself hope.

“Lord Commander Snow has ordered a search party sent out to find his brothers. However, as the Night’s Watch is severely understaffed at the moment, I felt it my duty to volunteer.”

“Your…duty?”

“I did swear to bring Catelyn Stark’s children to safety, after all. Arya may have slipped through my fingers this time, but I will not abandon my quest so easily.”

“What does this have to do with me?”

“I thought it might help to bring someone along who could vouch for the children,” she went on. “Jeyne would certainly recognize them, but I dare not take her after all she’s been through.”

Theon nodded. “You wish to take me with you?”

“It won’t be easy,” she said. “There are rumors—faint rumors, mind you, but so far that’s all I have to go on—that a young crippled boy and a giant were seen north of the Wall.”

“Bran and Hodor?”

“Could be. As I said, these are only rumors I’ve heard from a few of the wildings around here.”

Theon felt his heart swell. To see Bran again, to apologize. It might not mean anything to the boy who’d been forced to flee his home—a home that was now burned—but to have the chance, or perhaps to die trying.

“Yes,” he agreed.

Brienne quirked her lip in a small smile. “Pod needs some time to recover. We’ll be leaving in a few days. That should give you enough time to say goodbye to Jeyne.”

He couldn’t imagine how that would go. He’d be sure to give her a proper farewell, though. They might never see each other again.

“Right,” Brienne said. “I have business to attend to. Rest up.”

She turned to go.

He thought of something he wanted to say to her. “Thank you,” he said, and she stopped to watch him out of the corner of his eye. “For everything you’ve done for Jeyne. And me. Thank you for giving me a second chance. You…you’re more of a man than I ever was.”

She furrowed her brow.

“Ah, I didn’t mean—of course you’re not a man. What I meant was—”

“I think I know what you meant,” she said with a knowing smile. “Didn’t you know, Theon Greyjoy? Having a _cock_ doesn’t make you a man.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, I'm terrible at endings.
> 
> Anyway, this concludes everything I have pre-written so far. Work is picking up again, so updates will be slower, probably about once a week. I do have an unrelated Throbb fic planned, though, so stick around if you're interested.


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